Kitchen Garden Forum

I've been given a big bag of pears....so what is the best way to freeze them?


Thank you.

Hello Diane
What I do is to peel and slice them thickly putting the slices immediately into cold water with vit C powder dissolved in it (lemon juice will do). This is to stop the browning process which is very quick in pears. When all the pears have been done I drain the water and add plain warm water (about 50°C) to barely cover them. Then on a low gas very slowly raise the temperature to simmering (88°C) taking about 30 minutes to do this.
This way the pear slices keep their shape, flavour and colour very well. Then allow to cool and put in containers just covering with the juice, old marge pots for me, for freezing.

All this sounds like a lot of faffing around but its well worth it if you have some good quality pears that are not over ripe. Pears don't freeze well directly as they go mushy brown on thawing. Bringing slowly to simmering is the answer - simply boiling them will give you a brown pulp.

When using any fruit from the freezer we always heat it quickly to just boiling before using as it seems to keep much better.


Hope this helps

John

PS Apple slices treated in this way also give good results if don't want a pulp.

Many thanks for your speedy reply. Much appreciated.

What variety of pears are they, Diane? Williams go off very quickly, so it is a good idea to freeze them to preserve them. It's this variety that's used for canning (when it is known as Bartlett). But Conference, Concorde, Beurre Hardy — they will store well without any special treatment. Keep inspecting the pears in store and use them as they ripen or threaten to go bad. When I was a lad, my mother had us wrapping each Conference pear off of our tree in newspaper, and we would then put them in drawers in an old chest in our garage. That way, if one went west it did not bring the others down with it. On the other hand, I always considered it a hinderance to being able to inspect them.

Thank you for the info - I think they are conference pears. They are quite hard at the moment.

I think pears are better bottled as they don't freeze well, especially if they're not too ripe. Horses for courses though!

The only way I found them edible from the freezer was by gently poaching sliced peeled pears in a red wine syrup. Made with red wine, a little sugar, lemon juice and and a cinammon stick. Boil the syrup first for about 10 - 15 mins then add the fruit.

However like the others if they will store so much the better.

Beryl.